There are many times I feel very privileged to be a film reviewer. Most of the times I do it’s because I get to see some amazing films for free, and when I saw this film last year the at the NZIFF, I loved it!

Ai Weiwei:Never Sorry and From Up On Poppy Hill 

Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry

People are funny sometimes, and not in a good way. They see that an animated foreign film is playing at a festival, and without doing any research about it, they drag their young kids along.

These days’ documentaries connect and talk to me more than any other genre. I see some amazing films in any given year, and without a doubt, documentaries often make up more than half of them.

Winter Nomads, Bonjour Tristesse, The Shinning and Amour 

When you’re reading the programme for a film festival, and you see that a film won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, you pretty much automatically mark it down as a film to see. This is exactly what I did when I came across this one, and I even decided to read nothing more about the film.

Watching classic films on DVD is one thing, but when you get the chance to see them, maybe for the first time, on the big screen, you can’t turn that down! So that’s exactly what I did when I saw this movie was on the NZIFF schedule!

A good way to get the day started at a film festival is to see a light hearted film, be it narrative, or a documentary.

I’ve been in a nostalgic mood of late when it comes to films, but it’s mainly because I’ve decided to make my way through those top 100 lists you often see in film magazines.

 I was always looking forward to the finale of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, despite being annoyed at Batman's morals. Even if the lore wasn't entirely true to the comics, the dark themes that came through were definitely tributes to the Batman universe.